The role of osteopontin (OPN/SSP1) gene variants in inflammatory bowel disease

Introduction: Osteopontin plays an important role in chronic inflammatory and autoimmune diseases and has also found to be involved in the pathogenesis of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). The aim of our study was to analyze the potential association of osteopontin (OPN/SPP1) gene variants in a large and well-characterized cohort of European IBD patients. Aims & methods: Genomic DNA from 2819 Caucasian individuals (n=841 patients with Crohn's disease (CD), n=473 patients with ulcerative colitis (UC), and n=1505 healthy unrelated controls) was analyzed for nine OPN/SPP1 SNPs (rs2728127, rs2853744, rs11730582, rs1…